News Ltd ‘perfectly good’, Abbott says

The Australian arm of scandal-hit media giant News Corp was “perfectly good", Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said as he called on Prime Minister Julia Gillard to “put up or shut up" over questions she wanted answered by News Ltd.

“There is no evidence whatsoever that any of the practices, the reprehensible practices, that we saw at one newspaper in England have any currency here in Australia," he told reporters at an event at Monash Medical Centre in Melbourne on Thursday.

“I don’t think we should assume that Britain’s problems are Australia’s problems and I don’t think we should assume that Britain’s solutions are Australia’s solutions."

British tabloid News of the World, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News International, was closed earlier this month as revelations it had hacked into the voicemails of celebrities, politicians spread to include those of a murdered schoolgirl and victims of the 2005 London suicide bombings.

The scandal, which forced News Corp to abandon its bid for the 61 per cent of BSkyB it doesn’t own, has also claimed the jobs of Britain’s two top policemen amid revelations the paper paid police for information, and led to the death of a former News of the World journalist.

Mr Abbott’s comments came as Southern Cross Austereo chief executive Rhys Holleran said he did not see the need for another media inquiry in response to the scandal, as proposed by Australian Greens leader Bob Brown.

“When something happens overseas it doesn’t necessarily mean that it should all necessarily apply to Australia," Mr Holleran said on Thursday.

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Ms Gillard on Wednesday said Australians had been disturbed by the events unfolding in Britain and wanted to see News Ltd “answer some hard questions".

Mr Abbott said Ms Gillard should detail exactly what questions she wanted answered.

“If she can’t specify what those questions are, what she is doing is just smearing a perfectly good organisation," Mr Abbott said.

“Prime Ministers of Australia should be better than that, and I call on the Prime Minister to put up or shut up."

News International is a subsidiary of the US-incorporated News Corp, of which Mr Murdoch is chairman and chief executive. News Ltd, News Corp’s Australian arm, owns The Australian newspaper and other mastheads.

FolIowing the UK scandal, the Australian government on Thursday proposed new privacy legislation and will release an issues paper soon.

Mr Abbott said he would look at the privacy proposals on their merits but he would never support any attempt to bluff the media out of doing its job, which, he said, “is to hold bad governments to account".